The downtown power outage has shut down the Calgary Courts Centre and other provincial services. The Calgary Courts Centre will be closed on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week due to a lack of power in the building. Some cases will be dealt with at alternate locations, while others will be adjourned to a later date. Members of the public with matters scheduled at the Courts Centre this week are urged to visit the Alberta Courts website, albertacourts.ab.ca, for more information.

Erica Levin has been convicted by a jury of attempting to obstruct justice for trying to bribe a juror last year to acquit her husband, former forensic psychiatrist Aubrey Levin, of sexually assaulting patients under his care. Ms. Levin, 71, sighed and later wept briefly after the foreman of the nine-woman, three-man jury read the verdict on Thursday afternoon.

A Calgary woman accused of trying to bribe a juror in her husband’s sexual assault trial must now wait for a 12-member panel to render a verdict in her case. Justice Karen Horner gave her final instructions Wednesday to jurors hearing the case of Erica Levin, who is charged with attempting to obstruct justice in the trial of her husband Aubrey Levin, a former forensic psychiatrist who was later convicted of sexually assaulting male patients.

Court was shown surveillance video Monday, tracking the movements of a woman accused of trying to bribe a juror in her husband’s sexual-assault trail last year. Erica Levin, 70, had earlier pleaded not guilty through lawyer Michael Bates to attempted obstruction of justice for what Crown prosecutor Rajbir Dhillon told the jury was an attempt to offer a female juror money in an envelope shortly before noon that day.

A prominent city lawyer spent more than three hours in a holding cell at the Calgary courthouse following an alleged altercation with sheriffs after he was ordered out of court by a judge Friday morning.

The wheels of justice have slowed to a crawl in Calgary and southern Alberta during the devastating floods, but they did not grind to a halt by any means. The Calgary Courts Centre has been operating this week with skeleton staffs and dealing with numerous adjournments. At least a half-dozen city judges and others in the legal system, no different than thousands of fellow Calgarians, have had to deal with massive damage to their basements and other property,

With all animals accounted for and water levels around St. George’s Island receding, Calgary Zoo officials were breathing a tentative sigh of relief Friday evening. “At this point, it’s as good as it can be,” said zoo spokeswoman Laurie Skene.

Next to the country’s legislatures, the courts are the most public institution in the land: any citizen can walk into a courthouse and watch the legal system at work, but few do. Since 1983, the Canadian Bar Association has opened the doors of the nation’s courthouses even wider with annual Law Day events meant to educate people about the legal system and make it seem a little less intimidating.

City police are seeking a $12 million boost from provincial flood funding to help the department move its aging holding cells out of downtown Calgary. Police have been planning to replace the downtown holding tank on 7th Avenue S.E. for more than two years, but extensive damage to the building suffered in last June’s floods have upped the urgency — and created an opportunity.

Groups representing Alberta’s defence lawyers are accusing the provincial government of doing away with defendants’ right to due process in their rush to speed up traffic courts. The Criminal Defence Lawyers’ Association in Calgary and its sister organization, the Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association in Edmonton, are planning separate news conferences next week to denounce what they describe as a move to “completely dismantle” the traffic court system.

It could be another three weeks before the Calgary Police Service’s arrest processing unit for newly-detained suspects, closed because of massive flooding in the east end of downtown last month, will be back in operation in its administration building.

Flood waters have accomplished what no amount of lobbying from police and politicians was able to do: get Calgary’s judges to allow prisoners to be housed in the city’s courthouse. The arrangement is strictly temporary, prompted by flood damage that has left police unable to use their holding cells nearby on 7th Avenue S.E.

Moments after starting to submit his medical records in a sentencing hearing, animal abuser Robert Habermehl began to hyperventilate in court. “I’m kind of blacking out here right now,” Habermehl told provincial court Judge Bruce Fraser on Monday.

As Calgary police seek a replacement for an aging downtown lockup, local judges are rendering a negative verdict against moving the facility to a modern cellblock inside the city’s courthouse. On most days, only a handful of prisoners awaiting court hearings occupy a cellblock designed to hold more than 300 inside the Calgary Courts Centre at 601 5th St. S.W.

Despite having to use a rare process that took an entire day, a jury was finally chosen on Wednesday to hear the five-week trial of a man alleged to have been involved in the triple murder at Bolsa Vietnamese Restaurant on New Year’s Day 2009. Twelve people, plus two alternates, were selected for the trial of Real Christian Honorio, who faces three counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of

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